Books

[Billys Boots]

Dear all, the amazon.co.uk saga is ongoing - I've been evicted from their warehouse in Slough and have now got no UK address to avail of their offers etc.  Would some kind nordie soul allow me to move in with them (figuratively) by sending me their address/phone no. to PM please?  I'm house-trained. 

[Hardy]

Billy, just pick a random UK address. Put a random post code into Google Maps and it'll take you to a named street. Then pick a house number. AL4 0JN (that's zero, not "o") is a real postcode I know. The worst that can happen to the people who live at the address you choose is they'll get unsolicited post from Amazon, addressed to a Mr. Boots.

[Billys Boots]

Yeah, you have to put a phone number as well - I suppose I'll search for a number in that particular post code area and put that in, it'll be harder to show it's fake hopefully.

I hear that Amazon have bought a premises in Dublin with a view to starting an amazon.ie site, apparently. 

[Main Street]

Billy got the boot.

[LeoMc]

Anyone know of any good programs which can sort your electronic book collection on your PC?
I was given a disk with a couple of thousand books but they are all in individual folders by Author (alphabetically by Christian name). I would like to be able to browse by title or by Author Surname or by genre a bit like the way iTunes will organise your music collection when you first install it.

Calibre is decent enough.

Cheers, from their online demo it could be what I am after.

Does the job. Exactly what I was after. I have my first 500 books in and can see the reviews and covers. Now to set my own tags.
Cheers RM.

[Harold Disgracey]

Read a decent book called 'The Villa Triste' by Lucretia Grindle there over the last week - set in Florence; with a dual narrative of a police detective investigating the murder of a former WW2 partisan, with the diary of a nurse going through the occupation of Florence by the Nazis just prior to the Allied relief of the city.  Well written, but a bit long - worth a try if you like that kind of puzzle.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Villa-Triste-ebook/dp/B004QO994E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352278240&sr=1-1&keywords=villa+triste

Just finished this Billy, I thought it was excellent.

[pullhard]

what books are birds reading these days?

[Harold Disgracey]

@thePhilipKerr: Bernie Gunther back in April in A Man Without Breath. The title is from a novel by a writer called Josef Goebbels

[Billys Boots]

@thePhilipKerr: Bernie Gunther back in April in A Man Without Breath. The title is from a novel by a writer called Josef Goebbels

Cool, I have Prague Fatale lined up to read shortly.  Back to the Italian theme; have you read any of Marco Vichi's Commissario Bordelli series - recommended, by me anyway. 

[Hardy]

I've just read "Eleni" by Nicholas Gage. It was written in the early eighties but I only came across it recently. It's effectively an account of the Greek civil war in 1946-49, built around the story of the execution of his mother and his own quest, years later, to track down those responsible, having moved back to Greece from New York and his job with the New York Times specifically for that purpose.

Like all accounts of civil wars, it's harrowing, this time in its detail of the atrocities committed on the civilians of their own remote rural communities by the Communists and it's another great insight into the evils perpetrated in the name of ideologies of whatever hue.

It was lent to me by somebody who insisted that his own children all read it, which is some sort of commentary on its powerful testimony.

[Oraisteach]

Any recommendations about the best history of the GAA out there--something that's both anecdotal and encyclopedic?  Thanks.

[5 Sams]

Get in touch with Donal McAnallen.

[Oraisteach]

I'd like to get a hold of Donal McAnallen's book in hardback, but it's only available in paperback or downloadable version on Amazon.  Thanks for the suggestion 5Sams.

[muppet]

Just finishing 'The State of Africa' by Martin Meredith: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-State-Africa-Continent-Independence/dp/0857203878

Fcuk me, the same crap over and over again. Revolutions to achieve independence, then the revolutionaries take power and are worse than the Imperialists, then the inevitable Marxist counter-revolution, then the Marxists are worse than any of the previous. All the time the economies get worse and are exploited over and over by the various leadership, and all of this compounded by foreign interference.

Rwanda takes the biscuit though, which takes some doing. Mitterand, Boutros-Ghali, the UN and France come out of that particular one very, very badly. The Americans come out of Somalia pretty badly. E.G Bush Senior sent in the troops and they stormed a crowed beach to kick things off, a beach crowded with media that is, filming the boys dropping out of helicopters.

Most EU countries and the Cold War participants stuck their oars in without helping in any way but Belgium (!) was probably the worst.

A very good read.

[Hardy]

Of all the people to be colonised by, the Belgians seem to have been the worst band of bastards of all. We could have done worse in our choice of colonisers here, though I'd have chosen the Italians myself.

(Slips away quietly, hoping the most belligerent barstool republicans are out enjoying Black Eye Friday.)